Photo by Dan iel Lippitt

ProFiLe

Happiness
Is A
Warm Quilt

10/10
1997

56

Edith Broida
Special to The AppleTree

sleeper and then a perfectly plain
pair of anklets. Nolish liked the
effect and decided the blanket
ost mothers are savers,
could be more than T-shirts. She
particularly when it comes
gathered other artifacts of memo-
I to daughters. It's hard to
rable occasions: silk flowers from a
part with those first little shoes, the
junior bridesmaid dress; an antique-
frilly party dresses, ruffled dance
lace pillow case from a favorite bat-
costumes and the poster-sized bat-
mitzvah gift; a teddy bear (sans
mitzvah pictures.
stuffing); a beaded name bracelet;
Huntington Woods resident Judy
her homemade tooth-fairy pillow;
Nolish confesses that her saving of
and the letter she had earned as a
sentimental artifacts borders on "the
Berkley marching-band flutis
compulsive," but this tenden-
The challenge, Nolish
cy served her well when she
Ra chel
realized,
was how to attach
was seeking a unique way to
Nol ish is
honor daughter Rachel's
wrap pea' in all of these multi-colored,
multi-sized materials to the
graduation from Berkley
mem ories.
navy fleece blanket she had
High.
purchased for a backing. How
After Rachel attained senior status,
could she sew on all this without
Nolish sorted through her stash of
stitches showing through the back?--
family memorabilia. One cultural
She already decided she would
icon dominated: an amazing collec-
cut off the back side of the T-shirts,
tion of T-shirts. "If you think about it,
and that every time she added a
American culture is based on T-
shirt of another color she would
shirts," she says. "They've become
change the thread on her sewing
the ultimate simcha tool."
machine, a time-consuming task.
Nolish spread a collection of
The quilt was becoming more formi-
Rachel's shirts across the ping-pong
dable. And then another problem:
table, creating a veritable blanket,
how to attach the quilt to the blan-
and there was the inspiration for
ket backing? The solution was
her gift.
another
inspiration. Buttons.
For years, Nolish had welcomed
"I found buttons that symbolized
new babies with handmade, crib-
our
family pets, Kitty and Amber;
size quilts. This new project would
palm-tree buttons for our trips to Las
be a natural progression, a full-size
Vegas
and Florida; dice buttons for
blanket that Rachel could use in her
Rachel% bat-mitzvah casino party;
dorm at Oakland University. It
and
Snoopy and Spike buttons
would reflect both the typical and
because they were her favorite car-
atypical events of her life.
toons. I hand stitched the buttons to
Rachel's childhood in Huntington
both the T-shirt quilt and the blan-
Woods was typical; her birth was
ket."
not. Born in Bogota, Colombia,
Other events had to be acknowl-
Rachel was adopted by the
edged, and Nolish incorporated
Nolishes when she was an infant.
one more craft: stenciling. She sten-
Among the memorabilia Nolish
ciled "Nice doggie" to recall
found was a bib purchased during
Rachel's first sentence; "Whispering
difficult days in Bogota when her
Winds" for the summers at a cot-
husband, Jack, an attorney, was
tage; Little House on the Prairie, a
wrestling with unexpectedly compli-
reminder of the years of bedtime
cated adoption procedures. The
stories read by Rachel's father; and
bib, she decided, was important to
Borgo Sisters Dance Studio for the
Rachel's history and had to be
included.
many dance and gymnastics
lessons.
Next, she added a favorite pink